Here is my challenge. Name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever. And here is my second challenge. Can any reader think of a wicked statement made, or an evil action performed, precisely because of religious faith? The second question is easy to answer, is it not? The first - I have been asking it for some time - awaits a convincing reply. By what right, then, do the faithful assume this irritating mantle of righteousness? They have as much to apologize for as to explain.
Christopher HitchensI don't think it's possible to have a sense of tragedy without having a sense of humor.
Christopher HitchensThere are things about quitting the smoking habit for which nobody prepares you. Did I have any idea that I would indulge in long, drooling-nay, dribbling-lascivious dreams in which I was still wreathed in fragrant blue fumes? I would wake with the complete and guilty conviction that I had sinned in word and deed while I was asleep.
Christopher HitchensHannah Arendt in her study of totalitarianism borrowed from Immanuel Kant the concept of radical evil, of evil that's so evil that in the end it destroys itself, it's so committed to evil and it's so committed to hatred and cruelty that it becomes suicidal. My definition of it is the surplus value that's generated by totalitarianism. It means you do more violence, more cruelty than you absolutely have to to stay in power.
Christopher Hitchens"Objective" means that, in a confrontation with the evidence, you would be willing to change your own mind.
Christopher HitchensThe offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that canโt give way, is an offer of something not worth having. I want to live my life taking the risk all the time that I donโt know anything like enough yet; that I havenโt understood enough; that I canโt know enough; that Iโm always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom. I wouldnโt have it any other way.
Christopher Hitchens